Engadget: Google is disappointing the Stadia community

[Scottoest]

streaming is obviously going to be a game changer - it's clear to any non-luddite

but the market will be hard to predict - i think it's going to be xCloud and a dark horse AWS solution duking it out in 3 years

Click to shrink...

I think xCloud has the best chance of currently-known options, including whatever Amazon tries. Microsoft have the backend infrastructure to do it right, but more importantly xCloud is going to offer the kind of flexibility and choice necessary to get people to dip their toes into streaming. You can have a console for home, and xCloud on the road. You can use streaming as much or as little as you want, and lose nothing. And perhaps most importantly, being an extension of the Xbox ecosystem instead of a new ecosystem, it means you're getting the full gamut of new release games plus exclusives.

It's not like Stadia where you have to buy in all the way - your friends aren't following you, nor are your purchases, nor are your saves, nor is anything else. And if you decide Stadia streaming isn't for you, nothing you left there is going to follow you elsewhere..

 

[jon bones]

I think xCloud has the best chance of currently-known options, including whatever Amazon tries. Microsoft have the backend infrastructure to do it right, but more importantly xCloud is going to offer the kind of flexibility and choice necessary to get people to dip their toes into streaming. You can have a console for home, and xCloud on the road. You can use streaming as much or as little as you want, and lose nothing. And perhaps most importantly, being an extension of the Xbox ecosystem instead of a new ecosystem, it means you're getting the full gamut of new release games plus exclusives.

It's not like Stadia where you have to buy in all the way - your friends aren't following you, nor are your purchases, nor are your saves, nor is anything else. And if you decide Stadia streaming isn't for you, nothing you left there is going to follow you elsewhere..

Click to shrink...

i was only really thinking of infrastructure but i think you nailed it. microsoft has the gaming ecosystem also already in place, with decades worth of connections and experience in gaming.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

I think streaming will eventually be a game changer at some point. I don't think Stadia is going to be the one to do it. Stadia is going to go on the heap with OnLive and Gaikai, as an early failed attempt.

Click to shrink...

Pssst, Gaikai was bought by Sony to be used as the foundation for PSNow and the Remote Play services.

 

[Haze]

"Community" is really strong verbiage to describe like 15 people.

 

[Scottoest]

Pssst, Gaikai was bought by Sony to be used as the foundation for PSNow and the Remote Play services.

Click to shrink...

I know. And that was after Gaikai itself failed to make much of an impression as it's own service. I seem to recall reading that Sony own some of OnLine's patents too.

"Community" is really strong verbiage to describe like 15 people.

Click to shrink...

Go check out the Stadia subreddit sometime. It's a bastion of pure comedy. Reminds me of football players headbutting each other in the locker room, trying to psych each other up about the big game - or in this case, early adopters trying to convince one another that they backed the future of gaming as we know it.

 

[Haze]

I know. And that was after Gaikai itself failed to make much of an impression as it's own service. I seem to recall reading that Sony own some of OnLine's patents too.



Go check out the Stadia subreddit sometime. It's a bastion of pure comedy. Reminds me of football players headbutting each other in the locker room, trying to psych each other up about the big game - or in this case, early adopters trying to convince one another that they backed the future of gaming as we know it.

Click to shrink...

I know the type. Had a dude in my store asking about it before launch and I was kind of trying to at least expose him to a little skepticism on stadia because he was sipping the kool-aid hard.

he didn't say it explicitly, but it definitely came off as him being someone who wanted to be a part of something revolutionary.

i can only imagine the stadia subreddit is filled with that guy

 

[RunJumpStomp]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

 

[RLCC14]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

ok now compare post launch switch to post launch stadia

 

[Meatwad]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

You're right, Switch and Stadia are exactly the same things. They both start with an S

 

[Randomly Generated]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

Do you think Google is capable of producing a game on par with Breath of the Wild soon?

 

[cakely]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

In three years we're all going to look back and realize what a huge success Google Stadia has become?

Well ... good luck.

 

[Tmespe]

ok now compare post launch switch to post launch stadia

Click to shrink...

Not to mention Nintendo's long history in the industry and proven record of making amazing consoles and first party games.

 

[Semfry]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

Meanwhile, after the mess of the Wii U, me and many others thought Nintendo were onto something with the Switch reveal (even if it turned out even bigger than I thought it would be). This is some strange rewriting of history to imply that anyone except people already into streaming thought Stadia was appealing though.

 

[Scottoest]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

And all of this definitely had nothing to do with Nintendo owning quite possibly the most reliably popular stable of game franchises on the planet, nor the Switch's first year on the market featuring two of the best games ever made - one of which it launched with - that were also 100% exclusive to that platform.

Google don't even have the internal infrastructure to develop a major exclusive title yet, despite Stadia being out for three months. Jade Raymond herself has hinted that it could be as long as four years before you see the first major Stadia exclusive that actually leverages "the cloud".

Maybe Stadia gets past these massive initial problems, but to compare them even theoretically to a Nintendo console is just... wow. Yeah, maybe Stadia is like the Switch. Then again, maybe it's OnLive. Or the Virtual Boy.

 

[rsfour]

Stadouya

Google fucked up massively

 

[LumberPanda]

ok now compare post launch switch to post launch stadia

Click to shrink...

In the time that it's been since Stadia launch I'm pretty sure the Switch still more-or-less only had BotW.

 

[Alienhated]

If streaming is actually the future of gaming... then guess what, i'll deal with it in the future.

When it will hopefully not be just a complete corporate rip off torwards consumers and their rights and an unnecessarily mandatory and extreme life style choice, but just a clever, flexible and complementary commodity.

 

[Deleted member 925]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

You're totally off the mark dude. The initial reveal trailer had some people questioning the Switch, but once there was a full Direct and then the February playable events, one of which I went to in Chicago before the launch, I would say the majority of naysayers changed their tune. The big Switch events really were a huge success and showed what the system was capable of and the promise of the future.

I would say not once has Google had anything close to that, before or after launch. It's been a dud since day one.

 

[Deleted member 13645]

In the time that it's been since Stadia launch I'm pretty sure the Switch still more-or-less only had BotW.

Click to shrink...

That's a pretty big "only" considering it's one of the most critically lauded games of all time.

I think Stadia will do fine, but Nintendo has quite a bit more consumer trust when it comes to games. I know if I buy a Nintendo platform I'll get great first party games even if it's overall a dud like the Wii U. I don't have that for Stadia. It's a new platform with a new player to the industry and one that launched in a pretty undercooked state. That's a different situation from Switch.

 

[Canucked]

In the time that it's been since Stadia launch I'm pretty sure the Switch still more-or-less only had BotW.

Click to shrink...

but did it have threads like "switch is letting down the Nintendo community?"

or were people excited for a Mario game and Mario Kart. Arms reveal would have been about now. Do Stadia have theses games of this level to look forward to?

 

[mutantmagnet]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

I remember predicting the Wii would blow up in popularity, Wii U would flop and the Switch would be on par with the Wii. Stadia had potential but I had certain failure points in mind that they achieved. Stadia is going to limp along while Nvidia, Amazon and microsoft offer better implementations. It's not worth defending. We already have a better option with GE Force Now and the other publishers trying to squeeze on Nvidia by pulling out for the time being until they get a contract deal to be paid speaks to that.

 

[SJRB]

Google is disappointing the entire videogame community by treating it with utter contempt.

 

[2PiR]

lol I bet the actual number of users using it everyday is close to Windows Store game usage

 

[fiendcode]

In the time that it's been since Stadia launch I'm pretty sure the Switch still more-or-less only had BotW.

Click to shrink...

3 months in Switch also already had MK8D and Arms, the Splatoon 2 global testfire, plus a ton of smaller 3rd party and indie games that were doing well (ACA NeoGeo, BOI Afterbirth+, USF2, Bomberman R, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Dragon's Trap, Fast RMX, Shovel Knight, Blaster Master Zero, Disgaea 5C, Snake Pass, Minecraft, Cave Story+, Snipperclips, etc, etc). BOTW might've arguably been the only huge thing, but if something like BOTW is the only standard that qualifies then Stadia has essentially nothing at all then.

 

[VinylCassette64]

I'm honestly surprised a community still exists for Stadia at this point, to be honest.

At least they were always upfront with how they planned for it to go.

Click to shrink...

It's remarkably precedent how that tweet is an explanation for the results for that display, but it's arguably not far from the truth as to how Stadia as a product/service has been managed from reveal to release (and post-release) as well.

 

[Spork4000]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

Key there is that was all before it launched. When it actually came out and breath of the wild blew people away and then got a steady stream of games from Nintendo with a huge return to form MARIO game at the end.

Stadia hasn't done much to engender confidence in it's first three months. Trying to get people into a service years in when you have a ton of people who were burned at the beginning is a terrible business model.

 

[Bojanglez]

Honestly, I'm still enjoying using Stadia. It's the best way for me to play Football Manager and good to dabble in a few other things. The killer for me though it no 4G/5G support. I was away over the weekend with no WiFi access, but great mobile connection, I'm now paying £8 a month for the service and I can't use it on my own terms. I could use xCloud perfectly well, so I did that instead. It's made me question why I should bother paying for Stadia now.

 

[Sha_96]

"Stadia community"

 

[Htown]

streaming is obviously going to be a game changer - it's clear to any non-luddite

Click to shrink...

i'm still skeptical

because we're talking about interactive software as opposed to fixed audio or video content, there are fundamental inefficiencies at play here that do not exist in the other markets for which streaming has changed everything

 

[TE4M GREENE]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

I think we'll see the narrative change as soon as this holiday. IF you can play next-gen Madden, next-gen Assassin's Creed, next-gen Call of Duty and you don't have to spend $500 on a Series X or PS5, that really does change the calculus. I wouldn't be surprised if Stadia quickly ends up becoming the de facto Madden or Call of Duty platform.

 

[Fart Master]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

The Switch was sold out for months after release and besides nerds online people where interested in it. I've literally never heard anyone at school or work ever mention stadia. My mom is 62 and she knew about the switch.

 

[Castia]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

Then I remember Switch launch with one of the greatest games ever made.......

 

[Deleted member 2791]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

youre not fooling anyone phil harisson

 

[Mindwipe]

Remember when the Switch was getting ready to launch?

"The joy-cons look small"
"There aren't any games"
"It won't be as powerful as Xbox and PS"
"32 GB of storage FAIL"
"Nintendo should just make a box that goes under the TV like the others"
"The joy-cons have motion controls, its just a Wii clone"
"Nintendo should just make games for other platforms"

Nearly 3 years later 52 million units sold and thousands of games on the platform tell a different story.

I think in 3 years people will look back at the initial few months of Stadia and forget all the messaging blunders that Google had. They will just remember that they can play their games on any screen without a huge upfront cost.

Click to shrink...

Remember when microconsoles like the Ouya were the future and anyone who thought otherwise was an idiot luddite?

 

[cakely]

I wouldn't be surprised if Stadia quickly ends up becoming the de facto Madden or Call of Duty platform.

Click to shrink...

... what is going on in this thread?

 

[Spork4000]

I think we'll see the narrative change as soon as this holiday. IF you can play next-gen Madden, next-gen Assassin's Creed, next-gen Call of Duty and you don't have to spend $500 on a Series X or PS5, that really does change the calculus. I wouldn't be surprised if Stadia quickly ends up becoming the de facto Madden or Call of Duty platform.

Click to shrink...

Well all of those games will be 4K on a he next gen consoles and you'll have to pay for the subscription with Stadia. Also that is a really big if. So far stadia games haven been able to match a competent PC or even the enhanced consoles in many cases.

 

[Dunlop]

Conversely to here where we get called stans and defenders and delusional and all other manner of crap. Most of us on that subreddit know exactly what's happening and are dealing with it. We want to support it because we want it to succeed because it freaking works. There's no reason to go into a subreddit about a thing and shit on that thing and not expect backlash. Real discussions happen.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much, I cancelled my sub for now as there is nothing I want to play atm (was using it mostly to play D2) and am having fun tinkering around with Geforce but for posters in this place to call out Reddit as 1 sided on Stadia is pretty rich.

 

[Scottoest]

I keep telling you people - you really need to visit the Stadia subreddit sometime. It's pure comedy. Do it for yourselves. Turn that frown upside down.

 

[metalgear89]

Google is disappointing the entire videogame community by treating it with utter contempt.

Click to shrink...

Maybe your being sarcastic but google is not relevant in the videogame industry and stadia has not changed that. I doubt that many people are dissapointed or more importantly care.

 

[Deleted member 30681]

At this point, the only thing that can really save Stadia is a robust Stadia base launch, that has plenty of games on offer, and also has stuff like demos and f2p games to allow the service to speak for itself. I hope that the silence on Stadia base and the seamingly delayed launch means that's exactly what they are doing. Don't think it's too late to save it, but their work is cut out for them now. I think the big thing is just that they need to get the service into as many hands as possible, and that's where I think getting big F2P games like Fortnite, Warframe and others could come into play. You need people to try and believe in the service before you can expect them to put money down to buy games and use Stadia as their primary platform.

Feel like we'd be having a very different conversation if Stadia had at least an extra year to bake in the oven and launched sometime this year. I think the best outcome for Stadia would be a situation where the launch of Stadia base turns into a relaunching of the entire service, and rethinking their subscription model too. Stadia Pro is really just something that I found kinda baffling, because launching a subscription model would make sense a year or 2 after your system launched, when the library is plentiful, but with releasing at launch I think Stadia Pro's offerings in terms of free games really suffers from how limited the library is. The launch lineup was rough, and when you realize that, that launch lineup is the baseline for whatever ends up getting offered on Stadia Pro, then Stadia Pro just isn't very appealing.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

How well did this thing sell anyway?

 

[Pokemaniac]

streaming is obviously going to be a game changer - it's clear to any non-luddite

but the market will be hard to predict - i think it's going to be xCloud and a dark horse AWS solution duking it out in 3 years

Click to shrink...

Honestly it's not clear at all if streaming will be big. It's certainly become a buzzword, but so did block chains, and those are basically useless outside of some highly specific niches. There's a lot of reasons to be skeptical:

• Due to interactivity, streaming degrades the experience in a much more fundamental way than for other mediums
• For similar reason, the server infrastructure for game streaming is both significantly more complicated and costly than for other mediums
• A lot of the "play anywhere" promise of streaming is predicted on using controllers with smartphones, something that has remained stubbornly niche for a long time now.
• The realities of network connectivity (which 5G really isn't going to move the needle on much, if at all) add some pretty significant caveats to the whole "Play Anywhere" experience. Caveats which largely don't apply to the Nintendo Switch
• It's really not clear that there's an untapped market waiting for the console experience, but just waiting to not have to pay for a console.

It seems like streaming could potentially be a nice secondary thing for people who are away from their main system, but I have a lot of trouble seeing it grow much beyond that. Even that use case could be threatened if stuff like integration with Steam cloud saves on Switch becomes common enough.

 

[Numb]

Google is disappointing the entire videogame community by treating it with utter contempt.

Click to shrink...

No one expected anything serious from them in the first place

 

[ghostcrew]

I keep telling you people - you really need to visit the Stadia subreddit sometime. It's pure comedy. Do it for yourselves. Turn that frown upside down.

Click to shrink...

Hey if we wanna talk subreddits then the GeForce Now subreddit isn't much better. I was there today and the community has reached the 'bargaining' stage of grief. Promising that they'll buy a Ubisoft game if Ubisoft announce that they won't pull their games from the platform.

 

[Scottoest]

Hey if we wanna talk subreddits then the GeForce Now subreddit isn't much better. I was there today and the community has reached the 'bargaining' stage of grief. Promising that they'll buy a Ubisoft game if Ubisoft announce that they won't pull their games from the platform.

Click to shrink...

That doesn't really sound like bargaining - it just sounds like they are trying to make their displeasure known to the publishers who are pulling their games for no valid reason, by supporting the publishers that don't. Nvidia certainly aren't sitting on their hands, so the issues will probably be resolved at some point anyway.

90% of the posts in the Stadia sub are a) people complaining about "the haters", b) people taking pictures of their Stadia controllers at the airport or whatever, c) people pontificating about how Stadia is the best thing ever, and d) people explaining why none of the current problems are Google's fault and everyone just needs to be patient.

My favourite recent thread there, was basically an appreciation thread for Google, for actually communicating news about Stadia (!!) multiple times in the past couple of weeks. Something that would simply be taken for granted with Sony or Microsoft, as a basic function of being a platform holder.

 

[ghostcrew]

That doesn't really sound like bargaining - it just sounds like they are trying to make their displeasure known to the publishers who are pulling their games for no valid reason, by supporting the publishers that don't. Nvidia certainly aren't sitting on their hands, so the issues will probably be resolved at some point anyway.

90% of the posts in the Stadia sub are a) people complaining about "the haters", b) people taking pictures of their Stadia controllers at the airport or whatever, c) people pontificating about how Stadia is the best thing ever, and d) people explaining why none of the current problems are Google's fault and everyone just needs to be patient.

My favourite recent thread there, was basically an appreciation thread for Google, for actually communicating news about Stadia (!!) multiple times in the past couple of weeks. Something that would simply be taken for granted with Sony or Microsoft, as a basic function of being a platform holder.

Click to shrink...

I use both services and visit both subreddits and they're essentially the same at the minute. GeForce Now has all of the same 'photo of phone with controller attached at train station/airport' (I can see at least two on the front page now) and the rest for the past week has just all been complaints/outrage/memes about games disappearing with a variety of anger/bargaining/grief going on.

But hey, at least it's not run by Nvidia employees (that I know of).

 

[Scottoest]

But hey, at least it's not run by Nvidia employees (that I know of).

Click to shrink...

I still can't believe Google employees are allowed to run the subreddit for their own product.

 

[Dunlop]

It seems like streaming could potentially be a nice secondary thing for people who are away from their main system, but I have a lot of trouble seeing it grow much beyond that.

Click to shrink...

I'm playing Destiny 2 and the Division 2 on my $40 Firestick 4K, both games outperform my Ps4 Slim by a wide margin. Total cost to me was $3 for the Division 2.

Yes I had to sideload the app for the moment and publishers greed will slow this down but dismissing streaming as something niche that will not be changing the market in the future is just resisting change.

Consoles are not going anywhere, but streaming as a viable platform for gaming will be a reality.

 

[Bioshocker]

And even when it actually works, which it apparently does for some, where are the games?